Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA)

The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) publishes parliamentarians' expenditure every quarter, but relied on third-party suppliers to import its data. Morpht built a new GovCMS website that lets IPEA import more than 30,000 records in a single process and generate every report automatically.

Expenditure reporting, brought in-house

IPEA now publishes its quarterly expenditure reports itself, faster and at lower cost, on a site where reports load quickly and are easy to search.

IPEA imports its own expenditure data, removing reliance on third-party suppliers
Datasets of more than 30,000 records imported in a single process
200+ PDF reports a quarter no longer uploaded and linked by hand; parliamentarian pages generate automatically on import
Faster report loading, by indexing only the data each report needs [Confirm: page load time before and after]
Summary reports link straight to detailed reports with filters already set

Government - Federal

Splash Awards 2024 Nominee

About IPEA

Drupal 11 | Convivial for GovCMS | Web development | Solr search | Data imports

IPEA is an independent authority whose role includes reporting on parliamentarians' expenditure, so the data on its website is central to its transparency work. With its first website nearing end of life, IPEA engaged Morpht in March 2022.

The old site was slow, expensive, and complex to maintain. It relied on custom modules on GovCMS PaaS that could not move to GovCMS SaaS, and IPEA needed to import data and edit content without a vendor.

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The solution

The key KPI’s of the project were to facilitate large amounts of data, improve the performance of displaying results and improve the search and findability of parliamentarian expenditure data.

Morpht went through an extensive discovery phase to identify the key areas for improvement across the site. This included defining the solution, undertaking technical discovery to determine a scalable solution for returning and filtering data while maintaining the data integrity and improving user experience.

Content types for data

We introduced content types that populate automatically when datasets are imported, which also supports search engine optimisation (SEO). A proof of concept showed IPEA could manage the import process itself.

Report automation

Previously, IPEA uploaded a PDF report for each parliamentarian every reporting period, more than 200 files a quarter, and linked each one by hand. Morpht created a Person content type that is generated automatically on import.

Data discoverability

Solr search and our content model display reports quickly, because we index only the content each report needs. Filters and facets let users drill down, and selecting a value in a period's expenditure report opens the detailed report with filters already set.

Content management

We used Convivial for GovCMS as the starter site, giving editors built-in tools for daily tasks and a solid accessibility framework from day one.

Importing data

Using the Drupal Media and Migrate modules, Morpht enabled IPEA to import all reporting data itself. It no longer depends on a third party and meets its regulatory requirements faster.